How Many Kilometers in a Mile

Sep 01, 2011

People, living in countries where the imperial measurement system is adopted, use miles1, yards, feet and some other units to reckon distances. These countries are few in number, but one of them has hundreds of millions of citizens. Yes, we mean the United States. For Americans, the mile is a common unit of length, but almost the whole world uses the metric system with meters2 and kilometers3. Thus, sometimes they have to convert meters to kilometers and vice versa.

It is not a very difficult task, but you may need a calculator to perform it. First of all, you have to remember how many kilometers there are in one mile. The answer is following:

One kilometer is equal to about 0.6214 land miles

One land mile is equal to about 1.6093 kilometers

If you want to find out how many kilometers there are in some miles, you should multiply the number of miles by 1.6093. In order to convert kilometers to miles, multiply the number of kilometers by 0.6214. Do you still think that you are able to do in without a calculator?

But you have to know some more facts about miles in order not to get confused, so go on reading.

Different Types of the Mile

When we say that one mile has approximately 1.6093 kilometers, we mean statue (or land) miles. The nautical mile, which is used by air and sea navigators, is equal to 1852 meters (about 6076 feet).

Some countries also have their own definitions of the mile. Sometimes they are not even miles but units of length, interpreted as miles. Some of them are not used nowadays. Here are several examples:

The Roman mile is equal to about 1479 meters. It consists of 5000 Roman feet or 1000 paces.

The metric mile has 1500 meters (in the USA this term may denote 1600 meters).

The Scots mile has 5920 feet (about 1804 meters).

The Russian milya (in Russian, “milya” and “mile” are translated by the same word) is a distance of 7468 meters.

But you should realize that we mean the land mile, which is equal to 1760 yards, or about 1609 meters.

You can use the table below to convert land miles, nautical miles and kilometers to other units of length.

Feet

Yards

Meters

Kilometers

Land Miles

One kilometer

3281

1094

1000

1

0.62

One land mile

5280

1760

1609.3

1.6

1

One nautical mile

6076.1

2025.4

1852

1.852

1.15

The mile is a widely spread length unit with a number of different definitions. The statue (land) mile is equal to 1760 yards (1609.344 meters). The nautical mile equals to about 2025.4 yards (1852 meters).

The meter (British spelling: metre; abbr. m) is the basic length unit from the ISU (International System of Units). It consists of one hundred centimeters. In 1983, the meter was defined as the distance that light travels in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of one second.

The kilometer (British spelling: kilometre; abbr. km) is a length unit from the International System of Units. It equals to 1000 meters and is used to express distances between geographical objects.